Monday - September 19th - Ukraine

On Sunday evening, I had the privilege of preaching at the Pukhova Church in Kiev.  This is the largest independent baptist church in Kiev and a church with a wonderful history and testimony.  They are getting ready to celebrate their 50th anniversary and are expecting many guests from around Ukraine.  Many pastors have gone out from this church to start churches in Ukraine and surrounding areas.

Below is the pastor of the church at Pukho, Nikolai Velichko.  This pastor has been at the church for over 40 years and is a pioneer of the independent Baptist movement in Ukraine.  He has spent time in prison, as has many others in his congregation during the time of the Soviet Union for the sake of the Gospel.  What a spiritual hero!

After the PM service, we headed to the Kiev train station.  As you can tell, I was pretty amazed by what I saw - a modern technologically advanced train station.  Too bad the train wasn't as modern.  We took the 9 hour train ride in the old Soviet Union box car train.  But thanks to two sleeping pills, I never heard a sound and slept all the way to Lutsk.  

 Once we arrived in Lutsk, we went to the house we are staying and cleaned up and had some breakfast.  Then, we headed into the city of Lutsk, a city of 300,000 people on the western side of Ukraine.  There, we toured this castle that has been maintained since the 1300's.  Lutsk has seen many battles over those years, as it has been highly sought after land by Russia and Poland.

This is Pastor Victor, who pastors in Lutsk.  His church runs about 100 and they are seeing fruit from the preaching of God's Word.  He and his wife are allowing us to stay with them for a couple nights.  

These five men are pastors in Belarus.  They drove over to meet us and to hear Dr. Larry Oats teach a seminar.  The economy in Belarus is near collapse.  The people are struggling severely and the churches stay under persecution from the government.  These men are faithfully serving the Lord and making an impact for God.

The church in Lutsk, where Pastor Victor leads has a wonderful outreach ministry to children off the streets.  They come into the church to get warm meals, participate in activities, Bible studies, and evangelistic outreaches.  The church makes contacts with their parents in hopes of reaching them.  Several parents have been saved and are now faithful members of the church.  Other wayward teens have been saved and one young man is preaching now.  Here, BIEM is doing another Bible distribution with care packages to these needy children.  What a blessing it is to see a ministry of such great compassion.  

Dr. Oats, dean of the seminary at Maranatha Bible College, teaches pastors from Belarus and Lutsk about the dangers of post-modernism and the Emerging Church.  The pastors had alot of questions and benefited from the seminar.  

God has given us a great trip.  My heart is so full as I have seen how God has opened amazing doors for the Gospel in this area of the world.  Missions truly is the heartbeat of God!